Measuring Stress

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Measuring Stress

• Health Psychology

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Reasons

• 1.        Clinical diagnosis
• 2.        Research

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Three different types of measurement

• 1.        Physiological
• 2.        Psychological
• 3.        Behavioural

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Physiological

• One way to assess arousal is to use
  electrical/mechanical equipment to take
  measurements of blood pressure, heart rate,
  respiration rate, or galvanic skin response (G.
  S. R.). The Polygraph measures all of these
  simultaneously. Miniature Polygraphs can be
  carried around. Researchers using a miniature
  Polygraph were able to find that ambulance
  workers had higher blood pressure whilst at work
  compared with when they were at home (Goldstein
  et al. 1992). However, being wired to a
  polygraph could increase stress.

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Polygraph test
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Blood or urine samples

• Blood or urine samples can be assessed for the
  level of hormones that the adrenal glands
  secrete. There are two main classes of hormones
  corticosteroids (for example cortisol) and
  catecholamines (for example, adrenaline and
  noradrenaline. Measurements need to be analysed
  by a chemist using special procedures and
  equipment. However, having blood taken could
  cause stress.

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Evaluation

• There are several advantages to using measures of
  physiological arousal to assess stress.
  Physiological measures are reasonably direct and
  objective, quite reliable, and easily quantified.
  The disadvantages are that the techniques are
  expensive, the technique is stressful for some
  people and the measures are affected by factors
  such as gender, weight, activity prior to
  measurement and such substances as caffeine.
  Psychological stress does not always produce
  physiological arousal.

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Psychological

• Life events
• Holmes and Rahe (1967)

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Psychological

• The most widely used scale of life events has
  been the 'social readjustment rating scale
  (SRRS.)' developed by Holmes and Rahe (1967). The
  scale was made by constructing a list of events
  that were derived from clinical experience.
  Hundreds of men and women of various ages and
  backgrounds rated the amount of readjustment
  needed by people experiencing each of the
  stressful events. They were asked to give the
  average degree of readjustment.

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Holmes and Rahe (1967)

• To measure the amount of stress people have
  experienced subjects check off each life event
  they have experienced during the past 24 months.
  The values of the check items are then totalled
  to give the stress score.

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Holmes and Rahe (1967)

• Death of spouse 100
• Divorce 73
• Separation 65
• Jail term 63
• Death of close family member 63
• Personal illness or injury 53
• Marriage 50
• Fired at work 47
• Marital reconciliation 45
• Retirement 45

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Holmes and Rahe (1967)

• Change in health of family member 44
• Pregnancy 40
• Sex difficulties 39
• Gain of new family member 39
• Business readjustment 38
• Change in financial state 38
• Death of close friend 37
• Change to a different line of work 36
• Change in number of arguments with spouse 35
• A large mortgage or loan 30

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Holmes and Rahe (1967)

• Foreclosure of mortgage or loan 30
• Change in responsibilities at work 29
• Son or daughter leaving home 29
• Trouble with in-laws 29
• Outstanding personal achievement 28
• Spouse begins or stops work 26
• Begin or end of school or college 26
• Change in living conditions 25
• Change in personal habits 24
• Trouble with boss 23

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Holmes and Rahe (1967)

• Change in work hours or conditions 20
• Change in residence 20
• Change in school or college 20
• Change in recreation 19
• Change in church activities 19
• Change in social activities 18
• A moderate loan or mortgage 17
• Change in sleeping habits 16
• Change in number of family get-togethers 15
• Change in eating habits 15

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Holmes and Rahe (1967)

• Holiday 13
• Christmas 12
• Minor violations of law 11

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Holmes and Rahe (1967)

• A survey of nearly two thousand eight hundred
  adults who filled in a version of the SRRS found
  that 15 experienced none of the events during
  the prior year, and 18 reported five or more.
  The three most frequent events were "took a
  vacation" (43), "the death of a loved one or
  other important person" (22), and "illness or
  injury" (21).

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Holmes and Rahe (1967)

• The older the person the fewer life events
  reported and the more educated the person more
  life events were reported. Single, separated, and
  divorced people reported a larger number of
  events compared with married and widowed
  individuals (Goldberg Comstock, 1980).

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 Problems with the scale

• Major life events are rare therefore low scores
• Some items are ambiguous. Items in the SRRS are
  vague or ambiguous (Hough et al, 1976). For
  example, "change in responsibilities at work"
  does not take into account how much change or
  whether there is more or less responsibility.
  "Personal injury or illness" does not take into
  account the seriousness of the illness. This
  reduces the precision of the instrument.

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 Problems with the scale

• Value of items vary depending on what group the
  respondent belongs to.
• Large individual differences in ability to cope
• Large cultural differences in our experience of
  events.
• Value of events change over time. So text loses
  its validity.

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 Problems with the scale

• A weakness of the SRRS is that there is a poor
  correlation (about .30) between the score and
  illness (Dohrenwend Dohrenwend, 1981). One
  reason could be that there are other many
  possible reasons for why people get sick and have
  accidents.

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 Problems with the scale

• The scale does not consider the meaning or impact
  of an event for the individual (Cohen et al,
  1983). For example, two people who each had a
  mortgage for 20,000 dollars would get the same
  score for "mortgage over 10,000 dollars" even
  though one of them made ten times the income of
  the other. The amount of stress caused by the
  "death of spouse" could depend upon the age,
  dependence on the spouse, and the length and
  happiness of the marriage. This again reduces the
  precision of the instrument.

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 Problems with the scale

• The scale does not distinguish between desirable
  and undesirable events. "Marriage" or
  "outstanding personal achievement" are often
  viewed as desirable but "sex difficulties" and
  "jail term" are obviously seen as undesirable.
  Some items can be viewed either way, for example,
  "change in financial state" the score is the
  same regardless of whether the finances improve
  or worsen. Studies have found that undesirable
  life events are correlated with illness, but
  desirable events are not (McFarlane et al, 1983).

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 Evaluation

• High correlation between men and women, Catholics
  and Protestants. Not so high for Black Vs White.
• The SRRS has face validity because many of the
  events listed are easily recognisable as
  stressful events. The values Allocated to each
  stress event have been carefully calculated from
  data provided by the opinions of many people. The
  survey form can be filled out easily and quickly.

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Daily hassles

• Kanner et al (1981) - minor stressors and
  pleasures of everyday life might have a more
  significant effect on health than the big events.
  - Takes account of the cumulative nature of
  stress.

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Daily hassles

• Richard Lazarus and his associates designed this
  scale. It concentrates on recent stressors, the
  annoying things that happened to everybody
  everyday. The hassles are rated as having been
  "somewhat," "moderately," or "extremely" severe.

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Daily Hassles

• 100 middle-aged adults were tested monthly over a
  nine-month period. The 10 most frequent hassles
  reported were
• Concerns about weight
• Health of a family member
• Rising prices of common goods
• Home maintenance
• Too many things to do
• Misplacing or losing things.
• Outside home maintenance

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Daily Hassles

• Property, investment or taxes
• Crime
• Physical appearance

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Uplifts scale

• In addition to the hassles scale there is another
  instrument, the uplifts scale, which measures the
  good events in life. It is reasonable to assume
  that experiencing events that bring peace,
  satisfaction, or joy would allow people to endure
  the hassles of daily life. Uplifts experienced in
  the past month are recorded on a three-point
  scale.

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Uplifts scale

• The uplifts are rated as having been "somewhat,"
  "moderately," or "extremely" strong. The 10 most
  frequent uplifts reported were
• Relating well to spouse or lover
• Relating well with friends
• Completing a task
• Feeling healthy
• Getting enough Sleep
• Eating out

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Uplifts scale

• Meeting your responsibilities
• Visiting, phoning or writing to someone
• Spending time with the family
• Home pleasing to you

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Hassles, Uplifts and Life events

• One study tested middle-aged adults, using 4
  instruments
• The hassles scale
• The uplifts scale
• A life events scale that includes no desirable
  items
• The health status Questionnaire, containing
  questions about general health (Delongis et al.,
  1982).

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Hassles, Uplifts and Life events

• There is a weak correlation between hassles
  scores and health status, as well as between life
  event scores and health status. Hassles were more
  strongly associated with health than life events.
  There was no association found between uplifts
  scores and health status for men, but there was
  for women.

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Test - re-test reliability

• Self-report measures of life events are
  unreliable. A study had subjects fill out a scale
  regarding life events they experienced during the
  prior year. The subjects then filled out the same
  Questionnaire every month for a year. Towards the
  end of the year the reports were quite different
  from the ones made at the beginning of the year
  (Raphael, et al. 1991).

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Other methods of measuring stress

• Above methods only provide a snapshot.Stress
  varies from day to day.
• Gulian et al (1990) - study of British drivers.
  Completed psychometric tests (e.g. Rotter's
  Internal - External Locus of Control Scale).
• Also filled in a diary of their feelings while
  driving over 5 days.

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Results

• More stress in the evening and midweek.
• Stress varied with age and experience, health
  condition, sleep quality, driving conditions,
  driver's perception of driving as stressful.

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Douglas et al (1988)

• Douglas et al (1988) used diary and physiological
  measures100 fire fighters from 12 stations.
• Heart rate recorded for minimum of 48 hours (used
  portable electrocardiogram)

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Douglas et al (1988)

• Results yielded a 'Ventricular cardiac strain
  score'.
• High scores were found to correspond with number
  of call-outs, level of seniority, and stressful
  events recorded in diaries.

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The end